Flower Bouquets

OK... I am pretty sure these are my favorite things I have EVER made... a few months ago there was a kit from Scrapologie, the St Patty's Day kit, that included a cone. Of course Ranjini designed the most precious little cone with vintage treats tucked in it. I had to order the kit and thought that the cone would be precious hanging in my new scrap room, whenever that would be done! Recently I found a set of the little cones and bought them in order to make a few treats. The other day I was inspired to make something for Julia & Natalie for our upcoming visit to NY for the 4th.
{Julia & Natalie are Tracy & Frank's little girls... Keith's best friends from college. Frank's birthday is also on the 4th so we go down there every year to celebrate. I love making little gifts to bring down - Julia just loves anything we bring down for her.}

I started by cutting paper to fit on each side. For Natalie's I used the Animal Crackers line from Making Memories (yes, the same thing used in a previous post - do you think I love it?!) The colors and designs are just perfect for baby girls - she is 1. Then for Julia's I used the Katlin line from Crate Paper. Julia's favorite color is pink but she also loves purple and this line is just so fun and whimsical for a 4 yr old girl.

Back to the creating part.... the idea was that I could cover the outside with paper and then fill it with, I hoped, paper flowers. I cut paper from different sheets of each line so everything was different, then I also covered the top inside of the cones with paper b/c they fold out. Heather clued me in that you can go to Michael's and search out fibers by bulk in the knitting section. There was a 20% off your whole order last week so what is more perfect to buy??? I bought fuzzy fibers and used them on the creases of the cones to add some dimension. Then I decorated each side with their name, one side had their age in a chipboard number all glittered up and then some fun words on the extra sides.

THEN... the flowers... I bought smaller dowels - 3/16 - and cut them at different lengths to act as the stems - side note: I would paint them the next time, but didn't have time. I went to my stash of flowers and started digging! I started by gluing them, but then figured out glue dots and double sided tape did the trick and was much easier to do! I figured out how to put them on using some dimension, layering them, using my flower punch to use the coordinating papers... but flowers need glitter... in comes the stickles! Stickles is possibly one of the greatest inventions ever... it's glue with glitter - but once it dries it doesn't stick to anything. You can literally use it on anything to add a glitter feel! I have tons of glitter to use with a glue pen, but this tends to be easier. Continuing on I realized that the centers of the flowers needed something too... Kate has these fabulous rhinestones at the shop - each package has 100 total in 3 different sizes for $2. Who wouldn't have every color?! I needed something to hold the flowers up inside the cone... searching through all my stuff I realized that tulle would not only look so fun, it would hold them up in different sizes, etc...

So here they are.... I finished with large eyelets on 2 of the sides that fold down and strung a ribbon through so that they could hang. The girls have a new playroom that Tracy has been putting together so I figured they could hang them in there. I made 8 flowers for each cone... they come out so precious.

(Note the green room in the background! Pictures to follow on that soon. I have to start loading it up and then I'll post... my creative juices are going to go NUTS when it's all done!!!)

The Programs...

For those of you that saw the invitations about a month ago, here are the programs for the spa party on the 4th of July. Ronnie asked me if I could do them, so I did! They were fairly simply to pull together and I am really happy with how they came out.

I stopped in at Right at Home Scrapbooking in Attleboro on my way up to work last Tuesday. She carries a really nice supply of Bazzill cardstock and papers. I picked out a variety of different aqua and teal papers to use. I cut the 12 x 12 paper in half and folded it so that the programs are a 6x6 size. Inside I used some vellum I had left over from a project that I did a few years ago. I printed the agenda and menu on that and then tied it on with some gold wraphia.

On the front I embossed the shell that I used on the invites. Inside I embossed some smaller shells and then the flower I had used on the front of the invite. I think they came out great! It was also nice to be able to go to my usual scrap night and just be able to crank out the shells! I did smaller ones for name tags that she is going to use on the tables. She's going to write in the names for that.

Overall I think they came out refreshing and very nice looking!

A baby shower...

It was with so much pleasure and excitement that I prepped this stuff for Jessica's shower. She is due with a baby girl in early October and I just can't wait! I have had so much fun buying up little items for her... a little Lilly dress for next summer!

I am making a baby album for her that will covers the first year. These are so much fun to do - esp when it's a girl b/c I can add so much glitz and glamour, i.e. glitter and sparkle! The pages shown here are for the month of January using the new line from Making Memories - Ella, which is just too cute for words!

This is the tag that I made to go on the gift... I wrapped everything up in different color tissue to match these colors and put it in a white basket. This stamp is from a line called Outlines - I have really come to love these stamps. They are just so much fun to work with. I layered many of the different blocks, added stickles or glitter and colored with watercolor pencils.

The shower was a wonderful, fairly simple affair. Jessica looked beautiful. It was so much fun to be there with Jenny and help as she opened up her gifts for her new little girl... and the most exciting part for Jenny and I was that Jessica asked us to be her GodMommy... I am beyond touched and thrilled and will make sure that she is spoiled!

An Acrylic Album...

Another project off my 'to-do' list! I bought this acrylic album a few months ago to try... everything acrylic is all the rage right now so of course I have to do it too!
One of my weekly 'musts' is my Wednesday night at Absolutely Everything - a fitting name - where you can go to work on any project. I have grown very fond of the ladies that join me every week (and the ladies that work there too!). Let alone how much I have learned in the 8 months or so that I have been going. For the month of May, Kate ran a contest to do an acrylic album to win the Bind-It-All machine from Zutter... well it was the perfect excuse to take on the challenge!
I chose my album to do about some of my best friends. It took some time getting used to... acrylic is see through so you really have to position everything right for what you see through to. I opened with a picture of Keith & I at Jessica's wedding last summer... with that I needed to do some more suble colors - some darker greens and blues. I followed up with a picture taken of Jess, Kris & I at the Grog a few years ago so those colors were a little darker too, but started to get bright so I could sort of start moving it along to get to the pink from our bridesmaids dresses at Jess's wedding! I then ended it with pictures of Heather & I along with some of the boys on the back! It really was a very fun activity... I had lots of glitter, the best use of double sided paper (you can see one here with dark pink hearts on one side and big light pink ones on the other side (lower photo), transparencies, fibers (my new favorite), rub-ons are great on these albums and so much more.
The best part of the whole experience??? I WON A BIND-IT-ALL!!!!!! (well... only Melanie and I had the b#$%ls to enter so we both won!) It's going to be a fabulous addition to my new scrap space.

More Invitations!

This is an invitation I did this past week... the criteria was for a summer spa party (over the 4th) with aqua and white. She lives out by the beach so I wanted to include that in the theme. I printed the words, inked the edges and put them on a slightly darker card stock. The shell is from as stamp called the Postal Shell from Stampington & Company - there is a background to the shell, but I stamped with embossing and then sprinkled different distressed embossing powders - the effect actually makes it feel like sand. After I embossed I cut the stamp out and used dimensional tape to make it stand up more. The other stamp is from a Stampin Up! collection... I printed the inside of the invite from my PrintPro Shop program.

A Bridal Shower

Heather's Shower!!!! The wedding is not until October, but we decided to do the shower this spring so that there wasn't a summer shower. In Sept we'll do a girls day/ night which is hard to ask people to participate in 2 things with the wedding right there, so I tried to spread it out!

Anyway - here is the invitation that went out! I decided to do a butterfly theme b/c it's something that Heather loves. I used the AccuCut machine for the butterfly. For the blue swirl I stamped with Stampin Up's heat and stick and then sprinkled glitter over. The background is Bazzil's bling paper. Finally I stamped an engagement ring and used gold stickles around the ring part and more bling for the 'diamond!' I attached that to the ribbon on the right. I do wish I had planned a little more and been able to use Stampin Up! paper for the butterfly b/c writing on Bazzil is such a pain!

Watch for the other projects for the shower to be posted... I made a mini 6x6 clipboard to keep present notes (which I did!) and a recipe book that included recipes from everyone that was invited to the wedding.

Recipe Box

I have so many projects that I have been wanting to finish up, so I finally made a list and am trying to get them done one by one! AND trying not to add more... the list includes a recipe box (seen here and talked about more below), gifts for heather's shower (almost done with those and will post AFTER the shower!), a book about Skippy - he's my lovable cocker spaniel that is the sweetest little guy in the world. I've never had the foresight to keep pictures about my dogs and also try to write about them while they are alive! A book about Isabella... I never thought I'd love a cat, but I do. She's just precious and has a very funny personality, sometimes I don't think it's that funny when she has this awful meow at 4am. Finish up Theo's album about his first year. I'm getting there on that. I also need to finish up the little album that has a LO about each month in the first year of his life. A mini acrylic album - Kate is having a contest at the shop for the month of May making an acrylic album. The prize is machine that you can use to bind little books - I WANT this! And the drawing is on my birthday so it's only fitting that I should win! I am going to do that book about girlfriends. A mini chipboard album with the pictures from our day at Fenway. A calendar for each Mom and Keith's Mom, Vera with pictures of their little guys - that's for Xmas, but it would be nice to not cram to finish in December! A calendar for me... yah, it's April. I want to do a calendar for Claudia next year too. Some vintage cards for Pat.

Along with doing all of these I want to create my new scrapping space at Keith's. I have cleaned out the front spare room - this room has TONS of natural light and is a great size. I'm plotting that! I want to paint it an apple green. I have some little projects that I want for that room... I bought the St Patty's day kit from Scrapologie primarily for this great cone that she had. I want to decorate it and have fun things poking out the top! There was also this great hanger that I have my vintage St Patty's Day postcard hanging from, need to update that regularly. The hanger is SO damn cute!

Well... the recipe box... I've been dying to have one for years. I have a folder full of recipes that I cut out, print off, etc. The plan is to put the recipes that I want to use again! I am very happy with how it came out. I think I'll add things that I find along the way. I still have to finish the dividers inside - haven't found the right thing yet.